Otherwise, you risk behaving like a bull in a china shop, upsetting and alarming your friends and riling up and enraging or emboldening your enemies.

As an example of the difference between “honesty” and “tact” (which you appear not to understand), I’m sure you would be quite alright with my casually telling you to your (and your Significant Other’s) face that she has a bucket-butt the size of New Jersey, that it’s referred to “Fat Tuesday” and not “Fat February” and that she should put the damn cupcake down and march her thunder-buns down to the nearest gym.

When your Significant Other’s face erupted in outrage, I’m sure you would be easily calmed by my telling you, “Hey, no reason to get mad at me. Every word I said was absolutely true. I’m just being HONEST.”

“If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all”. Yeah my mom taught me that but it really should be applied to poltics. If it was you could hear a pin drop and nothing would get done because no one would disagree.
Nutshell…tell me what I think you should tell me…if not don’t make a comment…spineless

Have they never heard the expression “If you can’t say aanything good, don’t say anything at all”?

Romney could have kept his mouth shut or at least waited until he was back in the U.S. before opening his mouth. As difficult as this is for some to grasp, honesty actually really ISN’T always the best policy.

Instead, he popped off with an off-the-cuff remark that appeared to criticize and undercut his own British hosts and embarassed a sitting British leader who is one of America’s strongest supporters.

NEWS FLASH, sometimes it REALLY IS better to answer with “it will all be sushine and puppy dog tails”.

Especially, since that is pretty much exactly how it has turned out. It really has turned out wonderfully, with few problems or incidents to speak of.

He was asked by NBC(go figure)to have his discerning eye, as a former head of an Olympic committee, give his thoughts on what possible issues there might be with the London Olympics. He gave an honest answer and did no bashing.Sure he could have just answered “it will all be sushine and puppy dog tails” but he answered the QUESTION that was asked with no sugar coating. If they would have asked him how wonderful he thought it was all going to be I am sure he would have given that answer. Let’s bash him for being honest!!

Btw, stop writing about Romney, it is useless, the guy has no chance just by looking at his face. This election will be so easy for Obama he wont even sweat.

Yes, “Israel and the UK remain just about America’s most loyal allies”. That’s why it was not necessary for Romney to travel there – there was nothing to prove.

Actually, Canada is America’s most generally loyal ally and one thta Americans consistently overlook and ignore. Perhaps Romney did not want to travel to Canada because he knew at the outset that he had nothing good to say for that country’s national health insurance system, which consistently delivers better, fairer, less-costly results than America’s horrific and failed health insurance system. The Canadian health insurance system is also wildly popular with Canadians, who would react with fury to any public criticism or assault on their health-insurance values.

In labeling Russia as the so-called “Eurasian Union” it seems Jonathan Saxty has a desperate need, like most conservatives, to invent another nonexistent “enemy of America” to justify his own paranoia. If the Europeans feel no “threat” from Russia, why should we “create” one where none exists? The Europeans clearly do not want the Berlin Wall back up or for there to be another potential clash between superpowers, least of all on territory which they live on.

As for China’s rising success, perhaps Mr. Saxty should look at where American consumers are spending their money and ask himself why Americans are spending the very same money on Chinese goods which eventually finds its way into paying for China’s military buildup. This in itself guarantees that American corporations (who will figure big-time in any Republican candidate’s world) stoutly oppose any disruption of relations between America and China. What company wants to bomb its best (or only) supplier?!?!?

Saxty’s article oozes fear – fear of a Russia becoming wealthy on predatory capitalism (which America taught the, and supported); fears of a China becoming wealthy on the proceeds of state capitalism (which, again, America pushed for – and achieved); even fears of a Latin American trade pact. If Latin American countries are willing to trade with each other and establish free-trade zones with each other, why is that any concern of Uncle Sam? Didn’t America spend decades pushing the idea of free trade? Or was that only “free trade, but only with us”?

Saxty even ruminates darkly on the idea that “Mestizo Hispanic begin to comprise a plurality, if not a majority, in parts of the country” of America — an alarmist, and potentially racist, outlook if ever I saw one.

Yes, America can come back from its crushing debt load – by reducing its trade deficit with China and other countries, by possibly enacting protectionist legislation, by requiring corporations to care about patriotism and their country of origina nd not merely their bottom line profits from Third World outsourcing, by raising taxes on the wealthy, by foregoing more criminally immoral and unfunded wars abroad.

None of those things will happen under a Republican presidency, however. And that in a nutshell is why a Romney presidency would be merely another way station on the timeline of America’s meltdown.